Image via Complex Original
Usually, the names that you see on posters for America’s biggest music festivals are internationally known touring veterans—the juggernauts who grind it out night after night at sold-out stadium shows. Yet, once in a while, the gods conspire to put a song or EP or album by a rising artist in front of festival programmers and they're inspired to give these up-and-comers a shot. What hangs in the balance for these artists as they step on stage, whether it’s at Coachella, Bonnaroo, or Lollapalooza, is a chance to launch themselves and their music into the pop stratosphere. All it takes is the performance of a lifetime, and talent, and charisma, and a ton of luck.
The artists on this list are part of an elite group that has ridden their respective careers to Coachella and beyond, taking that major opportunity and using it to magnify their art for the rest of the world to see. We know you’ve heard of these artists and bands countless times, but when each of them played Coachella, they were just on the brink of blowing up.
A-Trak (1999)
Let’s take a trip back in time to 1999. Two years after winning his first DMC World DJ Championship, and while he was still only 17 years old, A-Trak performed at the very first Coachella Music and Arts Festival, stunning the crowd with his turntable acrobatics. Performing alongside electronic heavyweights like Carl Craig, DJ Shadow, Moby, and the Chemical Brothers gave A-Trak the footing to make some major moves—moves like becoming Kanye’s go-to tour DJ, an internationally renowned producer, and head of Fool’s Gold Records.
Daft Punk (2006)
Daft Punk may have originally entered U.S. airspace when the disco cognoscenti of America first got their hands on Homework in 1997, but Daft Punk’s boldest move in the States occurred when they toured the country atop a two-story, LED screen-encased humanoid pyramid. Yes, Daft Punk’s legendary Pyramid Tour (the utter radness of which this author can personally confirm) touched down at Coachella, becoming by far the most talked about performance of the festival—perhaps even of the year—and setting them up for global adoration that continued straight through 2013’s Random Access Memories.
The xx (2010)
With their debut record having been released half a year prior, the xx were busy riding the wave of stellar reviews and press straight to the California desert to play Coachella’s 2010 festival. Their cool, focused, sultry set was the perfect contrast to the arid afternoon heat of the Outdoor Theater. The band left the stage solidifying themselves as dark pop powerhouses not to be taken lightly. Just a few months later, they were awarded the career-making Mercury Prize.
Frank Ocean (2012)
A year and a half after the release of his first mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra, Frank Ocean had already made a name for himself in the underground as a cult-pop figure with a penchant for off-the-cuff lyricism and quirky interludes. Ocean’s performance at 2012’s Coachella though, littered with technical difficulties (at no fault of Ocean’s), was nevertheless proof of his talent and charisma—just ask the thousands of fans who were there singing along to every word. Just a few months later, his debut album, Channel Orange, was released, making countless year-end "best of" lists.
Azealia Banks (2012)
2012 was a big year for breakthrough performances at Coachella. Not only did Frank Ocean boost his career with a set at the 2012 edition of the festival, but Azealia Banks ended up performing for the largest crowd of her young career. She brought all of the swagger and high energy that she’s known for, all the while pulling off the referee stripes way better than Robin Thicke could have ever hoped. Three years later and Banks still has the pull to cause more controversy on Twitter than Amanda Bynes.
Savages (2013)
Savages were already gaining plenty of notoriety as the stone-faced new kids in the post-punk scene after seriously lighting up CMJ and SXSW. The band seared through their set at 2013’s Coachella, impressing several critics along the way and confirming their reputation as a band not to be messed with. Just weeks after their performance, the band’s first record, Silence Yourself, was released, receiving universal acclaim.
Future Islands (2014)
Last year, Future Islands had a famous breakthrough moment performing on Letterman. But if that performance was their 11 years of backbreaking touring and recording boiling over into the pop mainstream, their performance a few months later at Coachella confirmed that this Baltimore synth-pop band knows their way around a stage and a heartbreaking power ballad. Future Island’s uniquely emotive Coachella performance almost immediately became the talk of the festival, and further linked them up with some much-deserved indie stardom.